Five years after the US invasion most Iraqis wonder if they really are any better off for seeing the back of Saddam, writes Tina Susmanfrom Baghdad
HUSSAIN ATTAR-BASHI watched the US-led invasion of Iraq on live TV, his illegal satellite dish hidden by cloth strategically draped across the roof of his home.
Five years later, Iraqi laws restricting access to foreign television and the internet are gone and Attar-Bashi is among the people riding a communications revolution that has swept the country.
Nowhere is that boom more evident than on the cacophonous stretch of road in central Baghdad called Sinaa Street, where Sunnis, Shias and Christians shop for the latest high-tech gear at stores such as Attar-Bashi's Alreem Computer Centre.
The fortunes of Sinaa Street, like those of the nation, rise and tumble with the course of the war. When violence ebbs, business thrives. When violence peaks, it suffers. Merchants such as Attar-Bashi have made a living selling their wares here since the March 2003 invasion, in what would seem to be an irreversible connection to the global information age.
But although Iraqis are now free to communicate with the outside world, they remain wary of speaking their minds in front of people who might disagree with them - even customers in their own cluttered shops. And after five years of war, bombings, kidnappings and murders, Iraqis still do not feel they can move about freely. Merchants on Sinaa Street do what most Iraqis do in their spare time: wonder if the relative calm will last and compare life now with the lives they had before the war.
Here, Iraqis' new-found freedoms are evident in everything from pirated copies of Oscar-nominated films to sophisticated laptops on which to play them. On a recent afternoon, vendors were selling Alvin and the Chipmunks, Mr and Mrs Smithand Juno, alongside religious DVDs and the latest version of Grand Theft Auto.
Disappointment is also on display. Attar-Bashi, speaking inside his sprawling store on a recent afternoon, said he had welcomed the arrival of the Americans. "We thought, 'oh, we'll be free'. We thought: 'We'll be able to go out and talk to anyone. We'll be free.' It didn't turn out that way."
Iraqis see that violence has dropped in the past few months, yet Sunnis still worry about being targeted by Shia militiamen and Shias are afraid to visit Sunni neighbourhoods. All are bitter about the violence and hardship the war has wrought and fearful that widespread bloodshed could return. Along Sinaa Street, young men in jeans swinging shopping bags filled with printers, scanners and other gear pass concrete walls plastered with posters of Shia clerics. Behind the walls, Iraqi and US soldiers sit atop tanks and Humvees. They watch over streets where battered sedans pass alongside armoured BMWs and minivan taxis, whose passengers are frisked for bombs before boarding.
The city's traffic veers past women in black abayas begging and scatters when convoys carrying soldiers or VIPs tear through, their sirens blaring and their passengers hidden behind tinted windows.
It is loud and lively, yet missing the frivolities of a normal city, where pedestrians might window-shop and where cafes would be filled with couples enjoying a Saturday afternoon.
Attar-Bashi kept his shop closed most of the past two years because of the danger.
A few weeks ago, he began opening every day because of improved security, but his confidence has its limits. He varies the routes he takes to and from work to keep potential kidnappers off his trail, and he discourages his grown children from going out.
"They are prisoners in their homes," Attar-Bashi said of most Iraqis, whom he acknowledges have fuelled his profits by scooping up stay-at-home diversions like computer games and gadgets.
"It's worrying," he said of the long-term effect of a cloistered society. "But compared to going out ... well, things here are still not stable."
They are far better than they were two years ago. Of the 170 or so shops on Sinaa Street, about 130 are open, clustered along a half-mile stretch facing the University of Technology. Most shut down after the February 2006 bombing of a venerated Shia mosque in Samarra, which unleashed a frenzy of Shia/Sunni violence that didn't begin subsiding until late last year.
In October, a car bomb killed three people on Sinaa Street. It was one of 45 car or truck bombings, including suicide attacks, that the US military reported that month.
Last month, the total was 24, although a series of recent high-profile attacks has raised questions about whether the relative lull might be ending.
Iraqi officials say the number of civilians killed in war-related violence last month was 633, compared with 1,646 in February 2007.
US officials cite these figures as proof that things have turned around in Iraq, and that five years after the war began, insurgents and militiamen are running out of steam.
But to most Iraqis, the security situation looks good only compared with the 18 months following the Samarra blast. They look at their lives in a visceral way. Do they feel safe going out to dinner or visiting unfamiliar neighbourhoods. Can they travel to neighbouring countries without being viewed as resource-sapping refugees? Can they find a doctor in an emergency or watch TV without cranking up the generator? Can they count on fellow Iraqis to spend enough money to sustain their businesses? For most, the answer to those questions remains no.
- (LA Times /Washington Post service)